Ending Human Trafficking in the Middle Kingdom

Here are the facts: in the last four months, Chinese officials have freed aproximately 3,400 women and children who were caught in the web of human trafficking. At the same time, they've arrested 824 suspected traffickers.
According to The Straits Times in Singapore and Xinhua on the mainland, China's Public Security Ministry has been involved in a deliberate campaign to curb human trafficking for months. That focus will continue through December, officials say.
Some of the women freed in recent raids had been forced to work as prostitutes, according to reports. As a nation, China is only now tasting the full effects of the one-child policy that has been in place for a generation. Some believe the lack of females of a marriagable age may be playing into the country's human trafficking woes. Here's an excerpt from The Straits Times article:

The trafficking of women and children remains common in China...
Women are also trafficked to be sold to men in remote areas who are unable to find brides, due to the sex imbalance resulting from China's one-child policy which has encouraged sex-selective abortions.
Population experts say that sex-selective abortions have boosted the number of boys born here for over a generation.
Men of marriageable age currently outnumber women by more than 18 million, a number that could grow to 30 million by 2020 due to a traditional preference for Chinese families to have male heirs.

Read the Xinhua report here.

Side note: I love Twitter. It has been an invaluable tool when it comes to finding out information about fair trade, human trafficking, and networking with others who are likeminded in their pursuit of global equity.
If you're on Twitter, please check us out. We go by World_Next_Door... hoping to see you there!

Fair Trade, the Norwegian Way

This commercial aired in Norway in 2008. The text at the end reads: "Equity in the past" and then transitions to "Equity now."
Enjoy!

Monday Quote Day

"Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom."
Milton Friedman, economist, statistician, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science

They're Home!

As everyone who glances at the news knows by now, American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling are back home in the United States, following former President Bill Clinton's 20-hour trip to North Korea. Here's a Daily News article by Michael Saul with more of the details.

They didn't have to break rocks, just eat them.
As Laura Ling and Euna Lee celebrated their freedom and thanked Bill Clinton for his rescue mission on Wednesday, harrowing details of their ordeal as North Korean prisoners emerged.
Prison food was rice peppered with rocks. They were held in isolation from each other, gripped by fear that they would be shipped to one of the infamous hard-labor gulags in Kim Jong Il's Communist state.
"The past 140 days have been the most difficult, heart-wrenching time of our lives," Ling said, choking back sobs just moments after the two journalists were reunited with their families.
In a classic Hollywood ending, Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, bounced off a private jet at 6:19 a.m. at the Burbank airport near Los Angeles and rushed to embrace loved ones.
As tears flowed, Lee hugged her husband and knelt down to lock her 4-year-old daughter, Hana, in a tight embrace. Ling kissed her husband. Soon after, the families applauded when Clinton emerged from the plane.
"Thirty hours ago, Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea. We feared that at any moment we could be sent to a hard-labor camp, and, then, suddenly, we were told that we were going to a meeting," Ling said.
"When we walked in through the doors, we saw, standing before us, President Bill Clinton," she said, pausing with emotion as she placed her hand on her chest.
"We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end and now we stand here, home and free."
In June, the North Korean regime sentenced the journalists, who work for former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV cable channel, to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the country.
Kim pardoned them during Clinton's dramatic 20-hour visit.

Read the full story here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/08/06/2009-08-06_ling_lee_call_captivity_a_nightmare.html#ixzz0NXhFPOLD

Freedom!

Fifty children, once forced to work as slaves on cocoa and palm plantations in the Ivory Coast, have been set free. An Interpol operation, conducted in cooperation with Ghana and Ivory Coast law enforcement, freed the children, ages 11-16, in a two-day operation earlier this summer (June 18 and 19). For me, stories like this are living proof of why fair trade works--and just how crucial the role of fair trade is in fighting human trafficking.
Here's what Interpol says about the children's work:

The children had been bought by plantation owners needing cheap labor to harvest the cocoa and palm plantations. They were discovered working under extreme conditions, forced to carry massive loads seriously jeopardizing their health... Children told investigators they would regularly work 12 hours a day and receive no salary or education. Girls were usually purchased as house maids and would work a seven-day week all year round, often in addition to their duties in the plantations.

Specially trained investigators in child exploitation and trafficking interviewed the victims with the responses providing investigators with a clearer picture of the extent of child labour in the region and potential regional networks. None of the children were aware that child labor is illegal.

...

With Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire producing around three quarters of the world’s cocoa, it is believed that hundreds of thousands of children are working illegally in the plantations across these two countries alone. The trafficking of children is often camouflaged by the cultural practice of placing young children with families of wealthier relatives to receive an education or learn a trade. In reality, they are often sold and their rights to education, health and protection denied. To continue tackling this trend, a second operation is scheduled for later this year in Ghana.

.

Here are some more links to sites with info about the freedom raids. The International Labor Rights Forum tackles the issue here, and Global Exchange delves into the relationship between fair trade and the forced labor of the cocoa business here.

Get It (for less!)

Twenty percent off and ZERO SALES TAX on any clothing purchase up to $100. It starts tomorrow!
(This is for in-store purchases only. Sorry!)

Back to School

Here in Chattanooga, teachers have started their pre-class planning and kids are loading up their backpacks and getting ready to head back to school. The summer (all too schort) is nearly over, and it got me to thinking: what does education look like around the rest of the world?

The World Bank does a great job keeping up with figures like this, and I've utilized their EdStats database to look up some relevant statistics. These include information on the country in general, as well as education-specific data. I've included the U.S. and the U.K., but am focusing on some of the countries that are top suppliers of goods here at World Next Door.
One thing I love about fair trade is that the groups we work with place a heavy emphasis on education. Without the stability and income that these companies provide, many families would not be able to send their children to school.
Ok, here are the stats. I thought that the literacy rates by country--especially when comparing female vs. male rates--are especially intriguing.

Just the Facts, Please

Just as the North Star guided escaping slaves to freedom in pre-Civil War America, so the Polaris Project desires to be a beacon of hope, leading modern-day slaves out of bondage. This group, started in 2002, is now one of the largest anti-trafficking groups in both the U.S. and Japan. I just learned about Polaris Project yesterday--they are among those urging the current administration to compile a list of products made using the labor of modern-day slaves.
Here are some facts about human trafficking from Polaris Project's website:

-Human trafficking comprises the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, based on the recruitment, harboring, and transportation of people solely for the purpose of exploitation.
-Every year traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits at the expense of victimizing millions of people around the world.
-Labor trafficking is widespread in variety of situations that encompass domestic servitude and small-scale labor operations, to large-scale operations such as farms, sweatshops, and major multinational corporations.
-Sex trafficking is one of the most lucrative sectors regarding the illegal trade in people, and involves any form of sexual exploitation in prostitution, pornography, bride trafficking, and the commercial sexual abuse of children. Under international law, any sexually exploited child is considered a trafficking victim, even if no force or coercion is present.
-An estimated 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked annually in the United States alone.
-The number of US citizens trafficked within the country is even higher. An estimated 200,000 American children are at high risk for trafficking into the sex industry each year.

Here at World Next Door, we are passionate about stopping human trafficking. We believe, from the bottom of our heart, that fair trade is a powerful tool in the fight against modern-day slavery. Human trafficking is a lucrative industry. If we hope to rescue its victims, they must have other avenues of employment to pursue in order to support themselves and their families. That is where fair trade comes in. By offering a fair wage, up-front payment for goods, and training in both skilled labor and business, fair trade gives people the tools they need to provide for themselves in a positive way. We, the consumers, get beautiful and unique products which we can feel good about supporting.
What could be a fairer trade than that?

Something to Ponder...

“I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth will starve in the process.”

Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (1889-1893)

Tell It To Us Straight

Four years ago, Congress told the Department of Labor to come up with "a list of goods produced by forced labor or child labor and the countries where they were made." Such a list would help consumers like you and me identify products made using modern-day slaves. After all, knowledge is power.

But, guess what? It's 2009, and that list is still MIA.
Here's what http://www.change.org/ says about the situation:

The list is designed to identify problem products (seafood, steel, textiles, etc.) and the countries where they are produced. Its release would provide consumers and shareholders with leverage to fight slavery worldwide. Empowered with this information, individuals could use their buying power to hold companies accountable and pressure them to rid their supply chains of slave labor.
In December...the William Wilberforce Reauthorization Act gave the department until the end of this year to comply with the mandate. However, due to the foot-dragging of the last adminstration's Secretary of Labor, the list is already long overdue. We must hold this administration to its promise of transparency, and demand the release of this list to the public now.

There is something we can do. Sign this petition to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and ask her to make the completion of this list a top priority.